alexf

After the first few games of the season where we couldn't score to save our lives and he kept fluffing big chances like in that Barca game etc. I would have likely said at the time that he can't be our CF. He seemed to lack the finishing instincts and technique. But we were going from watching an ice cool deadly finisher like Isak to Gordon who looked like he couldn't finish his lunch. But this 2nd attempt at playing him through the middle has been a lot better. This time we were going from watching Woltemade and Wissa really struggling to make an impact and even without the finishing, what we gained in having Gordon's pressing and energy helped benefit the rest of the team. His finishing is still a concern as outside of the 2 nice finishes we saw against Qarabag, everything else has still been penalties. Even last night you wonder if he can do better with that chance from the corner. But there are enough promising signs to persist with the experiment and he seems to really like playing there which suggests he will keep growing and learning how to improve in the position. As we have seen, a motivated Gordon is far better than the disinterested grumpy version.

Got a bad whack on the ankle before going off. Can't lose Gordon with this run of games coming up

Thought physically he looked almost back to peak Big Joe. Seems to find that extra gear when it's Man Utd. Technique still lets him down in a few situations like when he passed it out of play or when he tries to shoot. But he's effective as fuck when he's not carrying injuries. Shame his body can't keep this level up as much as he used to but impressive performance today.

Can't appeal a 2nd yellow red either can you? So you can't get Var involved and you can't appeal...hmm seems fair. We will miss him as he's had two good 45 mins in a row and he helps fill the Bruno void a little bit. *Edit. Yep can't appeal, that's bullshit that, grounds for all sorts of corruption if certain refs with bias wanted to. "No General Appeal: A dismissal for two yellow cards is considered a final decision on the day, with no right of appeal against the subsequent one-match suspension"

Played like he had a point to prove a little bit. Could see the effort and work rate from the begining. Some lovely times runs aswell, seems to be growing into the position. Well played

I can't stand people that can't apply context to situations. Just looking at the table and saying 12th isn't good enough etc. especially when there is only 5 points separating 7th to 12th currently. We just beat the team 3rd in the league while playing with ten men for a whole half. Unfortunately circumstances have meant we haven't been able to play at our best levels and we have been very up and down. Those circumstances mainly surround the fact we have played more games than any other team at this point, We've lost key players to injury at key moments and new players have taken far longer to settle in than we needed. Couple that with the unsettled summer with Isak and the Mitchell etc and this whole season is so easily explainable. Yes there have been mistakes made in team set up/game management in individual game etc. But fuck me man the weird desire for some to shift out the man who has given us so much already is just odd to me. Are they just bored of having the same manager for more than 5 minutes and need something new and shiny? Do they have higher expectations now because we have over achieved relative to our wage and revenue? Just back him to get it right and allow him the space to fail at times in order to improve and grow. He's not fucking Steve Bruce man, the guy always comes back and gets us going again. We probably lose to City, Chelsea and Barca possibly in the next week but still doesn't mean he's not the man for this club.

Wow talk about justice done. Felt like we were witnessing a robbery in plain sight after that first half. But credit the lads and the coaches for how they approached second half. Man U weren't quite at it and we took advantage. But then we started to look really vulnerable when Bruno was allowed to cross at will. Then wow what a great goal. Kept saying we needed to play the ball down the channels for our fast guys to have a chance to get on the end of them and Will did that and then some. Thought there were a few stand outs. Thought Joelinton was immense throughout, Trippier did really well considering the pace he was up against and Hall was solid as always. Gordon I thought was excellent for the most part aswell, perhaps could have adjusted better for his chance off the corner but hard to be critical. Ramsdale redeemed himself massively after maybe not doing great on their goal. His shirt to lose you suspect now. We needed that. Might fuck us over for the man city game with the added fatigue from playing with ten and losing Ramsey to suspension (fucking bullshit) But good for moral and another example to the Eddie Out boys while they need to shut the fuck up.

That was like all the best elements of Osula rolled into that one passage of play. Just everything came off like a dream. That goal will get replayed for years, it really is a fantastic moment. Showed on to his weaker foot then just unleashes an unstoppable worldie. Hats off man. He's had that in his locker, but normally you expect him to blaze it out for a throw in.

I know he's faster but think I'd rather Barnes stayed on for Elanga.

He was clearly fucking knackered from the sprint and probably from being ill this week. He now suspended for City?

I'm fuming at that. Didn't even celebrate our goal cus I knew we've been screwed here. The first yellow was a fucking joke for Ramsey. Slight pull in the half way line and the guy going nowhere. Then that meant he had to give a yellow for every foul pretty much. Then to give a yellow for that as a dive when he didn't even appeal and he was sprinting full sprint and you can see his ankle slips under him. Absolute joke. Then playing on for an eternity so they can score. Honestly football can get fucked. Man U always get special treatment somehow. Now our players are gonna be fucking knackered for the man city game aswell as probably losing this. Wouldn't be surprised to see Joelinton get sent for a 2nd yellow now aswell the way the game is.

This has the feeling of an Ashley era Bruce team vs the old Man U juggernaut rather than what we got used to over the last few years. A year ago I probably wouldn't have swapped barely anyone from our starting 11's, tonight i'd swap almost all. Crikey showing all of Pope's howlers back to back . How many points did he cost us this season, didn't realise there was so many mistakes.

This is the team I probably would have gone with against Everton as well to be fair. Needed big Joe back in the middle.

Only one goalkeeper on the bench! What is this madness.

Yeah felt like he was the lesser of two evils earlier in the season and backed him but it's a becoming a few mistakes too many now. Could play a Stormer if picked tonight but something tells me that won't be the case.

Nah. Even if we won, still wouldn't feel anywhere close to realistic that we could win the trophy. Whereas the league cup final was literally 90 mins to end our trophy draught. This is just a nice glamour fixture in my eyes where very few would expect us to win so we can try and play pressure free.

Klose's world cup goals record (still the leading scorer?) does alot of heavy lifting for this reputation I suspect.

B. Fernandes (Pen) is the scenario that keeps playing out in my head.

100%. Knowing when and who to cash in on has been a problem for this ownership and I believe has contributed to slowing down of momentum. The first initial splurge was great but then it should have been followed up by selling older players whilst stock was high. Likes of Almiron and Wilson arguably even Joelinton and Trippier could have been shifted for decent money off the back of that first CL qualifying season. Sure we would have had some outraged fans potentially but that's when you need to recruit well and improve on the ones you sell. That's where they went wrong this summer. They didn't get the targets they wanted, so then anything gained from selling crown jewel has essentially been squanded at this point unless the likes of Elanga, Wissa and to an extent Woltemade suddenly dramatically improved their levels. Again just helps explain some of the reason we have gone backwards. Which is why I think it's crazy to just blame Eddie for this and think anyone else could do better. We need to allow him this season and support him to turn it around rather than stick the knife in.

Can't see it tonight unfortunately. Fear the bad home run continues. The injuries haven't been as obvious or numerous but I think they still play and impact in subtle ways. For example Miley and Tino being out means we've had to play a 35 year old every few days now for the past god knows how many games. I've lost count of how many goals we have conceded down that side. Also means players are usually knackered. Thiaw, Hall, Tonali etc have all played way too many games when they look fatigued and that means we aren't getting the best performances from them. But agreed. We are in a pattern of in Europe = shite in the league, out of Europe = decent in the league. Recruitment was a big problem in the summer but I don't know how much control Eddie has over it so I'm not confident to blame him for it. But it has knocked us back. Anyone who doesn't think Isak was carrying us with some of his goals last year would be in denial and truth is the rest of the squad isn't that great. Everytime we finally sell a player they are usually shite when the move on...Almiron, Saint-Maximin, Long staff, Ritchie, Shelvey, Lascelles etc. That tells me that our squad is largely average and ultimately we have been massively overachieving with the squad we had during Eddie's time and this is the first time that we have dropped below par as we don't have a world class striker propping us up.

Just hope we don't get thumped 3 or 4. Because Cunha, Mbeumo and Bruno F are our defenders kryptonite. To much pace for likes of Burn and Trippier and Bruno threading passes in that pocket we like to give too much space in aswell. Gonna take a huge performance to turn around our current home form I feel. Sort of game we will miss not having our Bruno.

But he was the one that took us from 19th I think? when he took over to those top 4/5 finishes in the first place. If you want to attribute it to money spent then that s a different conversation. I would just add that Mike Ashley left us with an old depleted squad and it was always going to take a higher net spend to see us compete in anyway as we had next to no saleable assets. Regarding the tough draws. I would argue they are tough in the sense that apart from the Bradford game and Qarabag 2nd leg (grant you that one, thought it was mental we didn't play more young players etc). But every other game it would have been difficult not to go strong first 11. We have had 3 premier league teams in the fa cup, Arsenal have had Portsmouth, Wigan and now Mansfield in comparison. CL we were ranked like the 4th hardest run of fixtures, Spurs had the 4th easiest by comparison. However felt we have done well in CL, just undone by not getting results away to Leverkusen and Marseille when we should have done and then could have avoided the Qarabag extra fixtures. I just think saying finishing bottom 6 after finishing top 5 being inexcusable is really harsh when there are plenty of excuses and explanations for the drop off. If it carried on into next year that would be a different conversation again I think but I just can't get into the realm that he should be sacked for this season given all the circumstances.

For me this shows a classic case of fan's expectations rising too quickly off the back of some recent success. It's fine if you feel that way as it was always going to happen, but if Eddie's team had a more steady rise like getting conference league then Europa then Champions league I wonder if people would be still feeling the same way. It would have been a steady incline curve rather than the jagged up and down we have had season to season. We arguably overachieved 22/23 in getting to CL and a cup final. Then we dropped off the following year because the squad couldn't handle all the extra games and the really tough draws in all cups but were unlucky not to secure European football by getting 7th. Last year we equal the league performance 22/23 pretty much but go one better than that season by winning the league cup final this time. This year is basically a repeat of 23/24 but with the context that we had an awful summer preparation with all the Isak shite, starting the season with no striker and then pretty much all our top targets going to rivals. Team who loses their best player and doesn't adequately replace him and has to play more games (16 more games than Man utd so far for example) dropping down the league positions is not a huge shock. You couple that with again ridiculous cup draws meaning we never ever seem to get an easy game where we can rest players and ultimately we have lost too many key players for too long to injury. Tino, Schar and now Bruno spring to mind. I just find people saying that being in knockout phase of CL, the later stages of FA cup, reaching semifinal of league cup but struggling in the league is somehow grounds for sacking? Sure criticism is fine, being so poor in the league is naturally going to put pressure on you to improve. But apply some context to it and look at the underlying reasons. Eddie has earned the right to have a poor period of form and should be allowed time to correct it. Small margins but if we had a few less brutal cup draws I think we then manage to avoid a few more injuries and even if we had just had Tino or Bruno a bit more I think we sit top 8 comfortably. How many games did Hall and Tino start together? Must be a handful at most.

Their ability and pace going forward will rip us apart of we leave the spaces we have been doing all season. Can't see anything but a loss here. But would love to be wrong.

Only interesting thing left in this league season is to see if Arsenal bottle it again. Might be due to our game yesterday but fuck me I find football a chore now. Just set piece after set piece. Fucking shite.